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Octopus offers fleets up to 30% off public charging, and the maths explains why
Octopus FleetBoost takes up to 30% off public charging for business fleets on MFG EV Power, Ionity and Be.EV, and the discount says a lot about why public charging costs what it does.
Octopus has negotiated up to 30% off public charging for business fleets, and the scheme is a small window into why public charging costs what it does. FleetBoost launched this week, sold as a monthly subscription charged per driver through Octopus Fleet, the business platform Octopus built with Rightcharge.
The discounts are already live at MFG EV Power, Ionity and Be.EV, and Octopus says it hopes to bring other networks on board over the coming months. The three founding networks between them put 99% of the UK within 14 miles of a FleetBoost site, and cheaper units are highlighted in the app so drivers can find them.
How the scheme works
FleetBoost is not a card or a cut-price tariff in the usual sense. Drivers use the Octopus Fleet app to find and pay for public charging, the platform handles claims for plugging in at home automatically, and fleet managers get a single view of what the fleet is spending. The discount applies at the charger, with the network's rate reduced by up to 30%.
Octopus has not published the monthly fee, but the company reckons membership pays for itself after as few as two charging sessions. For a high-mileage van or a sales rep doing most of their charging on the public network, that is not a hard sum to make work.
Octopus Fleet itself launched earlier this year as a platform to help companies move their vans and cars off petrol and diesel, and FleetBoost is the charging side of that pitch. The platform handles the admin that fleets complain about most, from finding a charger to reclaiming the cost of charging at a driver's home, and FleetBoost adds a discount on top of it.
Why fleets get the better rate
The logic is straightforward and it is the reason the deal exists. Fleets provide a reliable flow of vehicles, keeping chargers busy, and that throughput gave Octopus the bargaining power to negotiate lower rates with the networks. Public charging margins depend on utilisation, and a guaranteed queue of company cars is worth a discount to the operator.
Octopus frames the deal as good for both sides. The networks get a predictable volume of vehicles that keeps their chargers busy, and the fleet gets a lower rate in return. That is a volume discount rather than charity, and it is the sort of thing a market with high utilisation and thin competition makes possible. The difference for public charging is that it has been a sellers' market for years, which is why the same kWh can cost 93p at one charger and under 7p at home.
The size of the problem the discount is aimed at is easy to see. A Rightcharge report found that public charging made up 27% of fleets' total charging sessions in 2025 but swallowed 57% of what they spent on electricity. The spread between the cheapest and dearest electricity is enormous: the most expensive networks can charge 93p per kWh, while a home tariff with cheap overnight rates can be under 7p.
ChargeUK, the trade body for the charge point operators, blames the gap on high energy prices and standing charges, plus the 20% VAT applied to public charging against 5% on home energy.
The maths for a driver
The cost per mile tells the story more clearly than the headline rate. For a Tesla Model Y, the cost of a mile swings between about 1.5p and 21p depending on where it is charged. HMRC advisory fuel rates put an equivalent diesel at roughly 16p per mile and a petrol car at 17p, so a Model Y fed only on the priciest public chargers can cost more to run than its combustion-engined equivalent.
That is the arithmetic fleets are trying to escape, and it is why a scheme that takes even 30% off the public rate matters more than it first appears. A 30% cut on a 93p charger is still 65p, which is far above home, but it narrows the gap enough to change the decision at the margin for a driver without a driveway.
Why it matters
Fleets are the volume end of the EV transition, and company car drivers are the group most exposed to public charging costs because so many of them cannot charge at home. A scheme that rewards high utilisation with lower rates is one way to make the economics work without waiting for the VAT question to be settled.
It is also a reminder that the public charging market is not one price. The rate a driver pays depends on the network, the tariff, the time of day and now, increasingly, on who they work for. We set out where the per-kWh prices sit earlier this year, and the spread has not narrowed.
For households rather than fleets, the cheaper route remains home charging, and the planning change that took effect this week makes that easier for people without a driveway. We covered what the order does when it came into force. FleetBoost is the commercial answer to the same problem: public charging is expensive, and the way to make it cheaper is to buy it in bulk.